Cigarette pack warnings: US lags and Americans suffer for it

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday November 17, 2010 · 6:49 PM PST

2010/11/17 · 18:49

There’s been a lot of talk about the FDA’s proposed pictorial warnings on cigarette packs, including some whining by people who say they go too far. Actually, our proposed pictorial warnings are tame compared to the warnings in other countries. Many other nations, including places like Mauritius, Latvia, Djibouti and about a dozen of other countries, are way ahead of us when it comes to explicit pictorial warnings on cigarette packs.

So I ask you: Is public health for Americans less important than it is for the folks in Mauritius? Reading letters to the editor and the blogosphere, you’d think so. People lambasted "nannyism" or claimed that the pictorial warnings are dumb because they won’t work.

Poll

87 votes Show Results

Should the US join other countries in using graphic pictorial warnings on cigarette packs?

87 votes Vote Now!

Should the US join other countries in using graphic pictorial warnings on cigarette packs?

Yes

35 votes

52 votes

How alcohol tax increases can help save state budgets and reduce underage drinking

jgogek

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday July 29, 2010 · 10:29 PM PDT

2010/07/29 · 22:29

From atodblog.com:

"Schools, city stare in abyss" screams a headline in the San Diego Union-Tribune about the hundreds of millions of dollars in budget shortfalls foreseen in the next few years. "Schwarzenegger declares California fiscal emergency" yells Reuters. But the Golden State, with its $19 billion deficit, isn’t the only one with a problem. New York faces an $8.5 billion deficit, Michigan $2 billion – 46 states had budget deficits in FY 2010-2011. Another $120 billion in state budget deficits are forecast for 2012.

There’s a pretty simple way to close at least part of those gaps and, at the same time, reduce our country’s worst youth drug problem: raise alcohol taxes.

Poll

77 votes Show Results

Should states raise alcohol taxes to reduce deficits?

77 votes Vote Now!

Should states raise alcohol taxes to reduce deficits?

Yes

29 votes

48 votes

UC students’ protests over tuition hikes are seriously misguided

jgogek

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday November 24, 2009 · 6:27 PM PST

2009/11/24 · 18:27

University of California students should be better informed. Where have they been for the last year or two as California’s economy went into the tank and the Governor and state Legislature refused to raise any taxes to balance the budget? What, exactly, do they expect UC President Yudof and the Board of Regents to do? Print money?

Poll

105 votes Show Results

Who is responsible for University of California tuition hikes?

105 votes Vote Now!

Who is responsible for University of California tuition hikes?

President Yudof and Board of Regents

14 votes

California residents and politicians who refuse to raise taxes to balance the state budget

91 votes

How NOT to do prison reform

jgogek

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday September 18, 2009 · 3:26 PM PDT

2009/09/18 · 15:26

For decades, people in California have talked about prison reform. Even while we were locking up record numbers of young Californians with laws such as Three-Strikes-and-You’re-Out, Democrats and Republicans (well, not the troglodytes) alike have been talking about how we need to divert nonviolent offenders to rehabilitation programs instead of simply jailing them. And California did have some innovative programs to do just that. Only, they were pilot programs. They never became institutionalized. And they were never really supported by the all-powerful prison guards’ union, because they didn’t create enough prison jobs.

Poll

69 votes Show Results

Does anybody in this country really care about prison reform?

69 votes Vote Now!

Does anybody in this country really care about prison reform?

Obviously not anybody in power

35 votes

I do, but nobody seems to listen

29 votes

Lock 'em up, throw away the key, and spend more billions doing it!

5 votes

Wacky whitefolks last waltz

jgogek

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday September 14, 2009 · 2:17 PM PDT

2009/09/14 · 14:17

Watching the antics of America’s angry, confused conservatives, many of us wonder, "how long must we endure these people?" Thankfully, as Martin Luther King once said: "How long? Not long."

Poll

128 votes Show Results

Will our country be better off or worse off with a lot fewer white people?

128 votes Vote Now!

Will our country be better off or worse off with a lot fewer white people?

Better off

57 votes

Worse off

25 votes

Too bad we have to wait decades to find out

46 votes

Could California finally end its budget madness?

jgogek

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday February 23, 2009 · 10:11 PM PST

2009/02/23 · 22:11

Have we had enough insanity yet? I don’t think most people in California realize it, but the Golden State just dodged a self-created economic depression by finally passing a budget. The world’s 7th (or whatever) largest economy almost committed suicide when a legion of state employees faced layoffs, which would have led to skyrocketing home foreclosures, vital services grinding to a halt, etc.

Even with the new budget, education will be slashed, which will severely harm our state’s future economy. Anyway, the tyranny of minority rule by extremists that brought California this craziness can be stopped with three public policy changes now in the works. The good news is that any one of these policies may be profoundly beneficial. The bad news is that they each depend on ballot initiatives, which means, even if they pass, they may be subject to the law of unintended consequences.

Read http://blog.jimgogek.com

Poll

65 votes Show Results

Will California voters use the initiative process to stop the budget madness?

65 votes Vote Now!

Will California voters use the initiative process to stop the budget madness?

Yes, they've finally had enough

27 votes

No, that's giving them way too much credit

38 votes

Americans and Israelis share few values today

jgogek

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday February 17, 2009 · 10:15 PM PST

2009/02/17 · 22:15

The Israeli elections may yet be unsettled, but the recent vote tells us one thing for certain: Israelis today hold few shared values with Americans and no value at all toward official US Mideast policy. Bedrock American principles such as equality, liberty for all, civil rights and diversity are irrelevant to the majority of the Israeli electorate. The US vision of Mideast peace receives zero respect.

Poll

162 votes Show Results

Do you think Americans will some day turn their backs on Israel?

162 votes Vote Now!

Do you think Americans will some day turn their backs on Israel?

Yes

86 votes

76 votes

Water conservation must begin down on the farm

jgogek

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday February 11, 2009 · 2:47 PM PST

2009/02/11 · 14:47

When people talk about conserving water in California, it’s always about turning off your yard sprinklers, taking shorter showers or shaving without the water running. We fret about watering golf courses and lawns in the suburbs. In presentations at schools, at Rotary clubs and on public service announcements, we’re continually told that, as dwellers in a semi-arid state, we must conserve water. All true. But what we don’t hear about is conservation on the farm. And that’s where we need it most.

Most urban Californians have no idea that agriculture uses about four times as much water as cities. Farmers know it, but they don’t talk about it much. All cities and suburbs combined in California use between 8 million to 9 million acre feet a year. Agriculture uses 34 million acre feet. An acre foot is how the West measures big amounts of water. It’s an acre one foot deep, or 325,851.4 gallons.

Poll

36 votes Show Results

Whose side are you on in the California water wars?

36 votes Vote Now!

Whose side are you on in the California water wars?

Agriculture

4 votes

Cities & suburbs

4 votes

Environment

28 votes

Dept. of Bad Public Policy: California Prisons

jgogek

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday February 02, 2009 · 6:46 PM PST

2009/02/02 · 18:46

California Gov. Schwarzenneger and Attorney General Jerry Brown are
firing blanks at the messenger heralding the disaster that California prisons have become. Both the governor and attorney general asked U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson to remove J. Clark Kelso, who was appointed receiver of prison healthcare three years ago by Henderson, and return inmate medical care to state control. Schwarzenneger and Brown complain that Kelso is going to spend $8 billion to build a gold-plated health system. However, their ploy to remove Kelso probably won’t work.

Let’s set aside whether Kelso’s $8 billion plan is a good one or not and instead look at how we got into this mess and whether we’re anywhere near getting out of it. The last question is easy to answer. Judge Henderson appointed Kelso because prison healthcare in California was terrible. There’s no evidence to show that it’s improved, nor that it will any time soon, considering the state’s multibillion-dollar deficit. Why would Henderson suddenly remove the receiver when nothing has changed?

jgogek

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday January 26, 2009 · 1:02 PM PST

2009/01/26 · 13:02

The Obama administration wants banks to use some TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) money to increase consumer and business loans. Or so they say.

"The point is to get credit flowing again to businesses and families across the country -- that hasn’t happened with the expenditure of the first $350 billion," top advisor David Axelrod said in early January.

There’s talk of stricter controls and oversight for TARP II. But exactly how the Obama administration will force banks to start lending more money to consumers and businesses isn’t clear. Does the Obama administration really want to do it? Axelrod’s words may be for public consumption only.

Poll

14 votes Show Results

Should TARP money go toward more consumer and business loans?

14 votes Vote Now!

Should TARP money go toward more consumer and business loans?

Yes, it will spur consumer spending and help businesses stay in business.

6 votes

No, it will lead to more defaults and foreclosures when people lose their jobs.

8 votes

President Obama can quit smoking and help save millions of lives

jgogek

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday January 17, 2009 · 9:06 AM PST

2009/01/17 · 09:06

With the country is facing an economic disaster and crises throughout the world, it may not seem very important whether President Obama smokes cigarettes. The public response to his struggle to quit seems to be: Give the guy a break.

But, tobacco smoke kills 440,000 a year in the United States and 5.4 million each year worldwide. That number will reach 8 million by 2030, with 80 percent of those deaths in developing countries. Tobacco will kill 1 billion people this century. It’s the most preventable cause of death, in rich and poor countries alike. President Obama can save millions of these lives by joining the fight against this global epidemic. But unless he can quit smoking and stay quit, he might actually hurt the cause.

Poll

76 votes Show Results

Should President Obama quit smoking now and go public with his struggle to overcome nicotine addiction?

76 votes Vote Now!

Should President Obama quit smoking now and go public with his struggle to overcome nicotine addiction?

Yes, it could help a lot of people.

31 votes

No, he's got enough problems already.

45 votes

Opinions & ballot initiatives on gay marriage are irrelevant

jgogek

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday January 15, 2009 · 7:15 PM PST

2009/01/15 · 19:15

"... It is important for America to come together even though we may have disagreements on certain social issues."

– Barack Obama on why he chose anti-gay marriage activist Pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration

Gay marriage isn’t a social issue. It’s a civil rights issue. In the 1950s and early 1960s, many whites insisted that black civil rights should be treated like social issues, that black civil rights leaders should go slowly and seek common ground and accommodation instead of receiving immediate, full rights. Today, the same is being demanded of gays and lesbians.

By definition, civil rights issues affect the rights of personal liberty guaranteed to United States citizens by the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution, and in similar provisions in state constitutions. The 13th amendment abolished slavery. The 14th amendment mandates equal protection for all under the law. Civil rights, say gay-marriage opponents, are only about race and gender, not sexual orientation. The 14th amendment doesn't say that, though. And the high court has not yet ruled.

Newer
Older

RSS